I was born 66 years ago today, which makes me old enough to know better, though some might disagree. Sixty-six is retirement age in the U.S. Social Security system and I am all signed-up. Retirement has been beckoning a bit, which might explain my recent absence from this rag. But no, I’m not retired at all and that means I owe you something of an update, plus of course my predictions for 2019.
First the Mineserver jihad. I’ve been quietly trying to find an investor to help revive this great little business started with my three sons but lost to my blindness last year combined with the Tubbs fire that cost us both the playroom/factory and our inventory of completed Mineservers. Our problem with finding a great investor is they inevitably do a Google search and see townspeople with pitchforks demanding my head, which kills every deal.
So if you want your Mineserver or your money back, please STOP bitching and help us find a solution. The potential for this little business is better than ever but only if you can contain your wrath and let us find a way out of this mess. Your alternative is literally nothing.
We are determined to fix the Mineserver business, which could turn around on a dime and grow to a surprisingly large size. We have a good product and a great marketing plan… if it weren’t for those darned pitchforks.
In the meantime I’ve found work with another startup. It also is exciting and this one is funded, too, which — believe me — is a relief to Mrs. Cringely. She just about had it with me and my zero income. Alas, I can’t tell you anything about the startup, which is for now in stealth mode. Look for our first news sometime in the spring.
Finally, January has for the last 22 years meant my tech predictions for the coming year, which I will start to pump out tomorrow, beginning as always with a look back at last January and how smart or stupid I happened to be. I’m sure I was both.
This time my predictions will be somewhat different. That’s for two reasons: 1) there’s a fair chance this will be my last year doing them, and; 2) I want to take a look out several years anyway because I sense the tech industry about to enter an unprecedented correction. EVERYTHING is about to change for all of us and I have a pretty good idea what’s coming. As alway, it is both good and bad.
Two thirds done — the title of this particular column — means that if I live to 100 my life is two thirds over. It’s a macabre way of looking at things, especially for the father of a 12 year-old. But the title fits my life to a tee.
“Our problem with finding a great investor is they inevitably do a Google search and see townspeople with pitchforks demanding my head, which kills every deal.”
And every tine of those pitchforks well-deserved. It’s not the pitchforks, “Bob”, its the way the project has been handled and abysmal lack of communication with the original investors over a period of years. Who in their right mind would invest in a project with such a history? You want to blame “those darned pitchforks”, go ahead, but it won’t change the facts of the matter. Everyone with a brain has already written off the project. You should just man up and acknowledge your failure.
Many Happy Returns of the Day
Many happy returns, Bob, who knows, you could just be half way through! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Many happy returns, Bob, from me too. who knows, you could just be half way through! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Time catching up with all of us – I’m 68 this year! New projects keep us going. My break from computers is refurbishing a 15-bedroom hotel in Scotland!
Mineserver is over and done with. Bob now has a permanent excuse.
“I can’t do it because I need investors. And I can’t get investors because… the previous investors are so unhappy. So it’s all your fault I will never finish Mineserver!”
This is what happens when a nasty bunch of peasants invest money in a project, and then come back with their pitchforks, making totally unreasonable demands like honesty and the occasional update.
Happy Birthday and Best Wishes for the New Year and your new adventures.
As for the Mineserver project, yes it was a great idea and as an exemplary parent you did your best to make it happen – but life is life and reality intervened. We’ve all had this happen to us – and anyone who thinks it hasn’t … well, it’s just around the corner waiting for them.
It’s not, as some idiots say, “man up and acknowledge your failure” – at our age (I’m a couple of years older than you) it’s really time to ask ourselves what can we do that will benefit our children in the future – remember, change is inevitable, except from a vending machine (Douglas Adams) – there are lessons in the past, but the future is where we’re heading.
Good Luck!
Two Thirds Done is also the title of Avram Miller’s blog, but I’m sure you knew that.
Investors beware: this man will take your money but he won’t be able to deliver. He won’t even tell you. Once you start asking questions he will promise results next year, or he’ll blame you for asking.
How much money are you trying to raise now? Kickstarter maybe?
Welcome back Bob… Reading your predictions is one of my yearly traditions since 2004… Back in PBS
So, stop taking pornographic pictures of your children and people won’t come after you with pitchforks. BTW, have you been arrested yet for that? You should be.
(For those who don’t know, Bob once posted proudly – with an example – that he annually takes a “nude family portrait” with his wife and young children.)
You’re killing me smalls. Fallen is now the same age as Channing when the project started. You say not to talk about Mineserver but then you talk about it keeping wasted hope alive. Just talk about the project on the Kickstarter site to keep everyone happy—ier. Investors would be less likely to see comments on the Kickstarter site. If you are truly are still working on the project, update your Kickstarter project site. It would be better to just state the project was unsuccessful on Kickstarter and if something happens later so be it. It appears you are just trolling Mineserver backer to keep checking on I, Cringely.
I don’t yet know what startup you’ve joined, but I guarantee I’ll make sure they, and the world, knows they’ve hired a pedophile pornographer.
If you can’t afford to lose your money without whining, don’t invest. I don’t recall Bob (Happy Birthday) ever promising a guaranteed ROI. Maybe the project could have been handled better; but other outside forces overwhelmed. So please shut up – I get tired of reading your cry baby BS.
The generations turn over… Dvorak out at PC Mag, Bob contemplating retirement. Looking forward to your predictions.
I’m glad to see you are doing well, and I wish you luck with the startup.
About Mineserver, I think one comment said it best:
“Everyone with a brain has already written off the project.”
Back towards the end of my mainframe days, I had an older colleague who was close to retirement. He had worked very hard most of his life in IT, and had turned a dismal beginning as a terribly poor child in the Texas Panhandle into a pretty brilliant career as a COBOL programmer. He did with pure grit, no college education, and TONS of effort. Today, he wouldn’t even get a chance, with all the electronic screening and testing.
His joke was that, for his retirement, he was going to have a bar in Florida where he would basically have a bouncer and throw out anyone who came in talking about technology, IT, or any software term he was aware of. It was going to be his “escape from computers” at a time when movie stars where trying to “Escape from New York”. I’m sure if he had done this, he wouldn’t recognize many terms today.
In contrast, over the weekend, I helped my freshman at Texas A&M son access a virtual Windows 10 system through A&M’s Virtual Open Access Lab to do his engineering calculus homework… In Python… He had to use Duo (2fa) authentication, and used his dual booted 13.3″ Macbook Pro to access the system. He booted it into Windows 10, where accessed the virtual system. He’s running out of hard drive space on that partition, thanks to a mistake I made in setting it up (did not plan enough disk space for Windows and programs). Then after we left, I asked him why he was running a Windows 10 virtual desktop from Windows 10? I told him to fire his laptop up on the Mac side and use it there (where he has plenty of disk drive space). He happily did that and is now realizing that the future is in the cloud.
But it got me to thinking. I recently spun up virtual server I am currently using to build and test software at my work. And it expires in 3 days (and I need to extend it about 2 more weeks to finish). My oldest son, graduated from Southern Methodist University, is working as an investment banker, and his company no longer issues Windows 10 laptops. You have a choice of a virtual desktop from a Chromebook, or bring your own and set up the VPN and remote access. No data is ever allowed to leave the VM without the company’s consent. You literally work in “their environment”.
Then it hit me. We are now at the point of realizing full “virtualization”. We are there. And more and more, it will mean less to most of us what Operating System we’re using, and more and more what specific business, scientific, or educational function we’re performing or “cloud” we’re using. The future is not in AI or EC2 style clouds, it is in EXPERT CLOUDS, purpose built to do whatever business, scientific, or educational function that is required for your job.
Some of us, like my current employer, appear to be “way out front” here, but I think the field is fully open to innovation, as the container and virtualization technology come fully into fruition. We can now truly focus on the business problem to solve, and less on how much DASD, CPU, and memory we need.
Education “could become” virtualized as well and MUCH CHEAPER. I think it’s occuring in Salesforce, as we are giving away our trailhead training for free. You can literally become an admin or developer from the coursework for free. No other tech company is doing that I’m aware of. It’s the kind of great equalizer in tech that land grants were in the 1800’s.
One final comment Bob. It sounds like you have the same challenges with Mrs. Cringely as I have with my wife. She likes her 4300 sq. ft. Texas home with a pool and her relatively new car with Bluetooth and is jealous of my newer car with CarPlay. I have 3-4 super great ideas for businesses that will never get done. With 2 kids in college (one freshman undergrad, and 1 first year grad student), and 3 elderly relatives to care for, I think we’re both left with finding or keeping solid full-time employment to make/keep our families happy. I’ve been trying to figure out how I could pursue these at my current company, but they are more concerned with my productivity, than my ideas for future software.
I would say put the Minecraft episode behind you. If there’s some way you can share your findings on what you’ve discovered with your “investors” then maybe there’s some redemption in this fiasco, and always remember that Murphy will find when you least expect it (Murphy’s Law – What ever can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible moment). Maybe you can “crowdsource” the plans with those who have invested with you as a penance, and maybe one of them will carry the project to completion. I think that’s the best you can hope for at this point.
I have thought about “giving away” my ideas. I saw an early version of an idea I had to test programmers in 1992 become Brain Brench. I even had the idea in 1995 to put the assessments on the web. Great ideas eventually make it to fruition, with or without you.
Project much?
And a former Texas A&Mer and “friend of a friend” in the Entrepreuer’s Club at Texas A&M is now the founder, owner, and CEO of Roku. And it literally is my favorite streaming platform, short of connecting my computer directly to the bigscreen.
Bon:
Happy birthday, and many happy returns. Keep the words flowing as best you can, they are much appreciated here.
Happy birthday, Bob! Really miss your incisive thoughts!
Happy Birthday! We love you, Bob.
Any chance you could tell us who the “super-secret guest” for NerdTV season 2 was?
It would be nice to know after 12 years of waiting. 🙂
Hey Bob
Been following you since I found you in Byte and dreaming of the Aliair LOL. I highly recommend retirement if you can afford that ( and the Mrs.okays it! )
Re the jerks complaining about Mineserver… for fear of starting a flame war… they, like I, invested in its creation. They were never guaranteed a product! I invested in your kids and I hope it succeeds for them! And I will wait patiently till it does, the others need to get a life!
Re your list, looking forward to it! While handicapped now I too still expect to live above “normal” so I’m looking forward to what you have to say!
Lastly with everyone wishing you a happy birthday, I can only assume it is! So happy birthday, and enjoy your family!
Rick
Hey Bob
Been following you since I found you in Byte and dreaming of the Aliair LOL. I highly recommend retirement if you can afford that ( and the Mrs.okays it! )
Re the jerks complaining about Mineserver… for fear of starting a flame war… they, like I, invested in its creation. They were never guaranteed a product! I invested in your kids and I hope it succeeds for them! And I will wait patiently till it does, the others need to get a life!
Re your list, looking forward to it! While handicapped now I too still expect to live above “normal” so I’m looking forward to what you have to say!
Rick
Hey Bob
Been following you since I found you in Byte and dreaming of the Aliair LOL. I highly recommend retirement if you can afford that ( and the Mrs.okays it! )
Re the jerks complaining about Mineserver… for fear of starting a flame war… they, like I, invested in its creation. They were never guaranteed a product! I invested in your kids and I hope it succeeds for them! And I will wait patiently till it does, the others need to get a life!
Re your list, looking forward to it! While handicapped now I too still expect to live above “normal” so I’m looking forward to what you have to say!
I have no skin in the Mindserver game here, but have enjoyed the jihad comments back and forth over the (now) years. One question I do have related to this post. You had thousands of dollars worth of finished product burn up. Did you have no insurance coverage for it? If no, for someone 66 years old, that wasn’t very smart.
I too, have followed you from the days of Byte and Infoworld. I may have even traded emails with you in the Infoworld days. I know I traded emails with other opinion folks from the back pages. Peter Coffee works for us now.
Happy Birthday Bob, ive been a long time fan of your blogs for many years so i will miss them if you retire. Looking forward to your predictions post as i’ve always read them with interest.
Re: kickstarter – the folks knew the risks and if they didn’t they should never have blindly given the money over. I can understand they are annoyed but they really should move on now. This blog has never been the same since and im not surprised you don’t post here as often as you used too, whatever you say gets shit on from a great height. And i doubt im alone in wanting to hear what you still have to say. Never gamble more than you can afford to lose! So whatever you decide to do – good luck!
Si (UK)
Happy Birthdy, Sir. Looking forward to the predictions. Good luck to you and the new startup. So much cool innovation happening out there. It’s fun to be a part of it.
Old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway.
Bob you are one the best tech writers when you know what you are talking about and on the other occasions when you don’t (health care, AI, Apple) you are still great to start conversation about.
I learned not to judge people by what they do to others but what they do to me so for me mineserver soap opera is just good comedy channel.
Best wishes and good to see you back.
Happy birthday ! And it could be worse, a friend of mine is 74 with 20 and 16 year old sons. And, this is his first marriage.
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I look forward to the predictions analysis and forecasting.
To those who say “the kickstarter backers knew the risks”, you are wrong.
The project was advertised as being done, with the money only needed to order cases. Take a look at the kickstart page for yourself. One of the early updates promises “the project was almost over before the kickstarter campaign began”. In other words, it was sold to backers as being risk-free.
So quit blaming the victims and letting Bob off the hook. The backers were either duped (at best) or ripped off (at worst) by Bob.
SQRL … any day now.
https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm
Today Hindus would be doing the IT jobs instead of Americans
They even shut down a hindu university in California
Happy Birthday! Welcome back Bob. Can’t wait to read your predictions.
“So if you want your Mineserver or your money back, please STOP bitching and help us find a solution.”
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So I read that and immediately headed over to Kickstarter to read the latest update there. Know what I found? Crickets. Dead crickets.
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So, no.
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You know what your investors are seeing when they google Mineserver? They see a project page with — wait, let me check — 2 years, 2 months, and 18 days of **absolute silence**. They see a project where the **four** people involved (Bob and three kids) couldn’t be bothered to post an update in over two years. They see complaints, yes, but not about the product or its prospects, but about the people behind the project who have been missing for two years.
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And, if those potential backers should happen to find their way here, what will they find? A project creator — the guy asking for their money — being dismissive, even condescending, to his backers (aka customers), despite their justifiable complaints.
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So, no Bob, we’re not going to let you off the hook so you can make a bundle.
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What you STILL don’t get is that the Mineserver backers are not as upset about not getting a Mineserver — many of us no longer have any need for it — as they are about the complete lack of communication. And if I were an investor, THAT — the piss-poor communication — would concern me a lot more than some disgruntled customers.
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But, of course, you don’t get that. And that too would concern me greatly as an investor.
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“It’s not, as some idiots say, “man up and acknowledge your failure” – at our age … it’s really time to ask ourselves what can we do that will benefit our children in the future”
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Two things struck me about this. First, It was advertised as the kids’ project — so where have they been in all this? They’re definitely at an age where they could follow through on this.
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Second, what Bob could really do to benefit his kids is force them to follow through. Y’know, teach them to keep their promises, exhibit honesty and transparency, and take responsibility for their failures.
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Hey Bob! Happy Birthday! Rather than being just an arrogant prick, now you’re an arrogant OLD prick!
@Glenn — “I don’t recall Bob (Happy Birthday) ever promising a guaranteed ROI. Maybe the project could have been handled better; but other outside forces overwhelmed.”
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No, Kickstarter doesn’t work like that — projects are never guaranteed to be successful and most backers know this. What *IS* guaranteed, however, is that the project creator — Bob in this case — will be open and transparent and keep backers up-to-date with what’s going on. And that means via the official channel — Kickstarter updates — not on some other, external media such as this site. (But, of course, if this is the only place Crookely mentions the Mineserver project, then the backers will bring their pitchforks here.)
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Let me see if I have this straight…. The only way backers *might* get their Mineservers is if they promise to never, ever, talk about it ever again. Is that correct? Yea, okay Bob, whatever you say….
Bob, Glad to see you survived a trying 2018 and are still at it. Following your annual predictions has been a tradition for me for many years, and I look forward to seeing this latest and hopefully not last edition. I would love to see you on TWIT again sometime. You would be a great addition to the regular panels.
I backed the mine server project as a way of encouraging Bob’s sons – and to thank Bob for the enjoyment I get from reading his columns.
I would back Mineserver Mk II in a heartbeat.
Bob, Happy birthday. Keep up the columns. And just announce that the MineServer project is dead. Closure will help you, and the rest of us. Kickstarter projects fail. I’ve had some good ones, and some bad ones. But what hurts with this one is the denial that it failed. Write up your experiences just as you would if you were interviewing yourself. That would help others. And we could move on. Thanks!
After all these years of following your column I finally find out we have our birthdays on the same day! So it’s a Happy Birthday to me and a Happy Birthday to you 😊
Happy Birthday Bob! Thanks for all them articles!
Belated Happy Birthday!
Good luck with the new ( and existing ) ventures!
Amen. You people wasted your money on Kickstarter hoping for easy money, it didn’t work out (as most do not) and God smited Job with plagues. What more are you hoping for? Your schadenfreude karma itch should be scratched, move the heck along.
So if all people stop complaining right now, as you requested, how long will it take for a Google search to stop bringing up results containing townspeople with pitchforks? I’m thinking 10 maybe 20 years, possibly never.
https://youtu.be/srwxJUXPHvE
You guys sure do feel entitled to bitch about losing $99. What a bunch of frikin’ babies! I went over to the kickstarter page and expected to see these things going for a lot more considering how much whining I see on this rag. Damn! I have been reading this blog for, what, 20 years? It’s the only one I look forward to and you guys have driven him into retirement. Happy Birthday Bob! Looking forward to your predictions and visions of the future (but I’m just aassuming AI and robots are killing all of our jobs).
I occasionally read this blog because it contains about 83% of info I don’t know anything about. But I like the writing (a lot) and like learning about technical stuff. I also enjoy reading the comments, even if some people are irate. If this blog were on the back of a cereal box, it would be even better.
I have no children and no interest in non-board games (I suck), so the whole Mineserver deal had been lost on me, despite constant references to it in the not so many posts I’d read.
Until now. So the Kickstarter project is kind of dead in the water. And the donations amount to about $91 per supporter….and people are spending years bitching about no product and no follow-up even though I, Cringley mentioned A FIRE and LOSING HIS EYESIGHT … and some of youse are still irate?
My family home caught fire with us young children still in it. No one hurt. But we talked about it for 40 years. The topic has finally dwindled away. And the blindness. Does one actually need to say more about that?
Kickstarter says this: “You can always reach out to the creator before pledging.” Which to me means buyer beware.
Some of y’all are upset at the lack of transparency. The man was devastated. He’s not so sprightly as he once was, and he’s trying to get his mojo back.
What else do you need to know and why for the love of all things coffee are you going on about something that likely has so little economic impact on you. I’ll bet you’re guilty of literally lighting money on fire in your past, from the tone of it.
I’m including my little blog as ‘proof’ that I am not a bot or a plant, as much as one can prove such things online.
Not sure how anyone posts on this blog. Seems everything I write with actual content gets spam blocked and I’m tired of rewriting it. This likely will post just to spite me…
@Jenny L. Yup, fml! and Bob, post on the KS site and end this flame war. Blame others all you want but I don’t see what stops you from updating that audience there. You had shit happen to you and I don’t blame you for not posting there THEN, but the fact that you are not posting on that site NOW is YOUR fault. Redirect the conversation there and many have said they will leave your blog alone. You ignoring that means you want this war on your site as far as I can surmise…
lot of people never read the line in the Prospectus where it says “risk of loss.” truly Cringeworthy.
two weeks from age 66 myself, still kicking it out at the keyboard, just not running VAXclusters. happy and many.
@Cris E — “Amen. You people wasted your money on Kickstarter hoping for easy money, it didn’t work out (as most do not) and God smited Job with plagues. What more are you hoping for?”
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Um, I’m not sure you understand Kickstarter at all, let alone the Mineserver project. No one was hoping for “easy money”; most were hoping for a small, compact Minecraft server (which, when the project started, was ready to ship except for the cases) but, in reality, only required an interesting journey, (not particularly far-fetched given Crookely’s self-proclaimed talent as a writer).
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Kickstarter is not an investment platform where backers can receive financial profits; it is a means of supporting projects that pique one’s interest or as a way of chipping in to make a product one is interested in a reality. Yes, projects fail and often but, always, the requirement is to share the experience with backers, to bring them along on the journey. And that is exactly what Bob *didn’t* do.
@Scott — “You guys sure do feel entitled to bitch about losing $99. What a bunch of frikin’ babies! I went over to the kickstarter page and expected to see these things going for a lot more considering how much whining I see on this rag.”
It’s not so much the amount as it is the principle of the matter. And, yes, we paid our $99 and, since we didn’t get a Mineserver nor the required communication, we figure that $99 pays for our right to bitch.
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As to who is a baby, well, I’ve been called worse. At least I’m not a dismissive, superficial prick. But, hey, you do you.
@Sheilerama — “I, Cringley mentioned A FIRE and LOSING HIS EYESIGHT … and some of youse are still irate?”
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Well, “irate” might be a bit strong, but yes. Crookely had abandoned the Kickstarter project long before those things happened.
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Yes, losing everything in a fire sucks, but no one was expecting him to sift through the ashes and somehow come up with the golden fleece. What would have been acceptable at that point would have been a update *on the Kickstarter site* saying “Well, that’s it folks. We lost everything in a fire so it’s over. I’m sorry.”
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Losing one’s eyesight sucks too. I very nearly lost mine in high school; I still have so much scar tissue that my left eye is nearly useless. But bear in mind that this was his three sons’ project. Why couldn’t they have logged on and posted something? Or the missus? Somehow, he still managed to post here; what prevented him from taking 15 minutes and posting an update on Kickstarter?
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Again, it all comes down to, as you put it, transparency. For someone who fancies themselves a writer, he continues to refuse to write anything where he has a legal obligation to do so.
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And, no, I’ve never *literally* lit money on fire.
I’d be satisfied if Bob simply posted a receipt showing that he actually spent the Kickstart money on Mineserver pcb’s and cases. So far, there’s no proof that he didn’t take the money and spend it on fuel for the military jet he owns. Just like there’s no proof his house burnt down and he lost his eyesight…
Looks like Bob needs the right to be forgotten.
Why not go back and delete all of the Mineserver rants from the blog comments? I know I wouldn’t miss them. Then I could get back to complaining about Steve Gibson and his SQRL vaporware. It’s almost been done since before the Mineserver Kickstarter. No accurate updates and I don’t think he’s had a fire or gone blind.
Hi Bob,
Been reading your fine words since 2008 and it will be a very sad day when you stop.
Think you need to switch comment moderation on as giving the mineserver complaint mob a platform just seems to be increasing their ire and boring everyone else. Let’s just keep blog comments to discussions about the blog itself.
One of the things I learned decades ago online. it was at The Well about the same time usenet imploded, would have been 1994, is that it only takes three or four cranks to completely destroy a conference. One could have dozens of regular posters with lots of informed discussion but once the cranks got going then the conference was quickly toast. Unless the moderator aggressively deleted all posts not directly related to the thread subject and corralled the cranks to their own ghetto threads until they went away.
Bobs mistake was not doing that here. At the very beginning. Before the half dozen or so people who are responsible for ruining it for everyone else got going with their incessant whining. As I said previously I now use this project as a case study which I have pointed out to others as to why you should never ever use Kickstarter as a source of funds for a project. The sleaziest two faced VC, pretty much all of them, is going to be far better to deal with than the cranks that are attracted to certain types of Kickstarter projects. Although a very small percentage of the total the cranks will ruin your life no matter whether you ship or not. It makes little difference.
Maybe we should set up a crowdfund a/c to pay back the less than a dozen people who have spend the last few years just adding worthless noise to this site. Give them their money back and tell them to go away. To those of us who have known Bobs work for decades, and given what he has been through the last few years, your constant bitching is beyond pathetic. And for what? A toy. For $100. God what a bunch of losers.
Give the Kickstarter cranks their own thread and delete their verbiage aggressively from all other threads. So that the rest of your loyal fans can read your interesting and informed posts. And the even more interesting comments. Dont let the bullies and trolls destroy it for everyone else. People who have enjoyed your writing for many decades.
To the vile troll using the handle “Tom Watson”. In the state of California you have just committed a felony offense.. You’d be surprised just how easy it would be to find out who who are. As someone who offered their technical expertise pro bono to the employee victims of the SB News Press owners similar smears more than a decade ago I know a little about this subject. You would not be the first to have made the mistake of supposed anonymity..Just ask the Silk Road people how that worked out.
So Bob, please start aggressively deleting all comments not directly relevant to your posting subject. So your many many friends here can enjoy your work again in peace and quiet without the cranks and nutcases screaming in our faces all the time.
Get well Bob and look after yourself.
… and Steve Gibson.
@ Adam, mdg. So funny. How many times have “cranks” made a simple request to update the Kickstarter site with information. Or shoot, even update here (since Bob refuses to update Kickstarter). You think just because you spout support for Bob, he’ll listen to YOUR requests to moderate comments? Or do anything else? It seems there are two clear scenarios – either Bob isn’t all there and doesn’t understand easy options exist to make life better for everyone (himself, his readers, Kickstarter people). Or, this is all 100% deliberate, which is a pretty big eff you to everyone also (yourselves included). Ponder that a minute, and please do let me know your thoughts.
As Bored pointed out (and many others from both camps have over the past 2+ years), ALL of this could and WOULD go away if Bob just posted on the KickStarter site. He posts here and continues to fuel a flame war because it drives traffic to this blog. The “whiners” aren’t the enemy here, nor is the opposing camp, the Bob loyalists; No, it is Bob who is selfishly pitting all of us against each other for some weird unknown reason. The solution is and has been simple for years, it’s just falling on deaf ears – post on the damn KickStarter site and end this ridiculous hostile conflict.
@Adam — “…giving the mineserver complaint mob a platform just seems to be increasing their ire and boring everyone else.”
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The reason Mineserver backers are here at all is because Crookely refuses to post an update on Kickstarter.
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Consider this: Suppose a backer, wanting to know what’s going on with the Mineserver project, only ever checked Kickstarter? How would such a backer ever know that Bob had vision problems for a while? That Bob’s house (and the Mineservers) had burned down? That Bob was reorganizing to turn Mineserver into an actual corporation? That he might be able to use some stock options to restart the Mineserver project?
That he was seeking VC investors to make another go of it? That every backer would “get their Mineserver before the end of this year.” (That was last year, btw.) That said backer should just shut up and bend over so Crookely can con someone else into giving him money?
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I’m not saying I believe all of that, but suppose a backer just kept checking Kickstarter only and posting questions and complaints there?
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As Obvious said, the obvious solution is simple: Crookely should go post an update on Kickstarter and keep the Mineserver stuff and this blog separate. Instead, HE has chosen to conflate the two, posting only here, drawing backers to this forum to air their grievances. Some have said it’s to boost traffic but I suppose it could also simply be to boost his ego.
@mdg — “I now use this project as a case study which I have pointed out to others as to why you should never ever use Kickstarter as a source of funds for a project.”
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It seems to me you clearly do not understand the nature of Kickstarter. If you do this in a professional capacity, you are doing your clients a serious disservice.
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“Give them their money back and tell them to go away. To those of us who have known Bobs work for decades, and given what he has been through the last few years, your constant bitching is beyond pathetic.”
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First, the “constant bitching” began long before Crookely’s issues began. Second, it’s not about the money. Third, yes, you could call the Mineserver a “toy” (but, really, what else is worth one’s effort and enthusiasm?) but even toys can be significant. I’m glad I never told my kids about it; I would have to have been one of the many parents who told their kids they would be getting a Mineserver for christmas only for them to be disappointed year after year. (Remember, save for cases, the Mineservers were ready to ship when the project started.)
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So, no, I’m not going to let Crookely get off easy. What sort of lesson would that be for my kids — or for his kids?
@Roger
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It’s a beautiful world out there. Please go out and experience it. Is there a park nearby, with water, maybe ducks or turtles? Does wonders for blood pressure. Maybe enjoy your rock garden.
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Does your city have a homeless shelter? Please buy them some blankets. It’s about to get mighty cold! Well, maybe not in California, but still. You’ll get a lot more joy from this than trolling some blogger.
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Some investments go south. That’s how it goes. Being angry forever because you invested in something that turned out bad, who’s hurt in the long run. You!
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The movie animal house comes to mind:
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https://chumley.barstoolsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/08/Screen-Shot-2019-01-07-at-8.31.47-PM.png
@roger
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Truly, a better way to invest your energy is into something that will impact you. Such as … let’s say you’re a developer for a business that sells school district software. The time and energy you invest in this company will directly help you!
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Especially if this company acquired another company about two years ago. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for improvements or efficiencies.
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Or maybe you spend enough time on the development end, well, how about marketing? Client support? The better the business does, the better you do.
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This is time spent well, and will help you and your family far more than spending day after day after day bitching at some blogger about a failed kickstarter.
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Just sayin’
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PS: I hope the board of education does well. I’m sure you’ll do your best. You certainly have tenacity!
https://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU
@roger
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I also worked in COBOL for a time. I’m glad to have that behind me. And about the BoE … sorry, my bad. I didn’t search far enough. Again, you have the passion, so hey, maybe next time you get in. As a quasi-insider (developer in the education industry) you have a very valuable insight to add to the mix.
Sad to see how terrible people treat Bob nowadays, they are truly “anonymous cowards”. There was a time when people were responsible for what they said, not today, yet history has a habit of repeating. I wonder where these cockroaches will go when the light is on them. I expect they would choose the option Brenda Leyland took when she was outed for tormenting the family of Madeleine McCann.
@Howard —
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Yes, I have a fairly unique name. Yes, I am a very public person. And, yes, you seem adequately skilled in googling. (Well, maybe not quite adequately, given that you got the election results wrong and couldn’t identify a specific city.) Is that supposed to scare me? It doesn’t.
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Not really relevant, but “The better the business does, the better you do.” generally isn’t true, unless you’re at the highest levels of management. It’s a platitude usually employed to mollify workers.
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In any case, we all have to have hobbies, right?
@roger
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Well, of course I know the city … or at least, the giant city close by. I felt it would be rude to go that far, publicly. But no, I have no desire to scare you. Just encourage.
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The better business does … well, depends on the compensation plan. If nothing else, yearly bonuses are often tied to actual profit, and so a good year leads to a higher return. But not always. ‘course, I’m at a startup myself, salary directly tied to revenue, so it’s easy for me to say.
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“we all have to have hobbies” … LOL! Well, you got me there. I’m trading comments here, too, eh? Ha ha. Cheers!
I’m going to make the first prediction of the year
The promised prediction article won’t come on the day he promised. Cringely hasn’t met a promised deadline in two years, nothing’s going to change now.
@zoinks —
‘ Sad to see how terrible people treat Bob nowadays, they are truly “anonymous cowards” ‘
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Let me guess, you think Bob is his real name, right?
Bob,
Please keep writing I enjoy and share your columns with friends and yes I do contribute.
As for the Mineswerver/minesweeper who the hell cares? It was adventure, it did not pan out, that is the chance you sign up for when you invest. Does anyone get angry when they buy lottery tickets, hell no! Life is too short to try and haul this dead whale up the beach for a group of villagers who no matter what you do will ever be happy. Move on, enjoy your family.
Keep the columns coming
Thanks
@crock – anyone can google for his real name within a few seconds. I am pro-anonymity, and it is sad to see it wasted by a few sadistic cowards. I’ve seen people acting like this since I got online in the 80s, save your breath trying to rationalize it as anything good. In the old days, you could follow up with someone, meet them at their front door, ask them about what they’d been saying. I’ve seen the fear in people’s eyes first-hand. Not one was the blackbelt, navy SEAL, ninja, or golden gloves boxer they claimed to be. They were bean-poles or blobs, and I would bet a lot of money the ones today are exactly the same.
@Tom Wilson – would it be prudent to say that only a pedophile would be so aroused and offended by Bob’s Christmas pictures and go so far as to call them pornographic- honestly? I bet you were out with pitchforks too when 1993 Rothschild came out, oh that dirty dirty drawing.
Happy birthday! Wish you all the best and hope to be able to continue reading your articles (and hearing your thoughts/prognostications) for many, many more years.
OMG! 99 DOLLARS?
I swear that I had no idea….from all the bitching and moaning and emphatic screeds of righteous indignation that have been posted here over the past few years (thousands of paragraphs representing hundreds of man-hours) insisting just how wrong Bob was in this Mineserver deal……I thought that these were investments of THOUSANDS of dollars.
And I am amazed to learn that all of this was over $99 investments. Really? THIS much grumbling and complaining and demands over THAT small an amount of money?
In this case the money IS the principal….you can’t claim a $10,000 principal when all you were asked for was $99 in the first place. You weren’t asked for your time, your intellectual property or your bodily fluids…you were asked for your money. 99 bucks worth. And if the one who you gave that to did not deliver to you what he promised, then that’s the extent of your “damages” and the allowable extent of your grumbling. Even our legal system and social values are based on that.
It seems to me there’s been a “hundred thousand dollar” volume of complaining on this site over a ninety-nine dollar transgression. Way inappropriate to Cringely and others on this site who were not involved in Mineserver.
Secondly, from a personal perspective (which is admittedly just a personal opinion and therefore not “right” or “wrong” for others), I don’t understand the amount of time, effort and energy the complainers have devoted to composing and writing the huge amount of words…paragraphs…. VOLUMES….that have been posted to this site to so emphatically make the case that what Bob did was wrong.
For me that would be way out of opportunity cost (of time spent) to benefit received. These zillions of posts of emphatically argued reasoning as to why Bob is wrong are being wasted here. This isn’t a nationally broadcast international debate team with a grand prize to the winner. It’s not an election for office. Not a panel on CNN or Fox debating over matters of national significance with hundreds of thousands of viewers.
What are you putting so much time and energy into running Bob down HERE? No offense, but this is just an arcane an IT old-timer’s forum (with I’m guessing maybe a few hundred regular readers?) who still love to hear the particular ramblings of a columnist named Cringely whose writing we fell in love with back in the 1980’s.
And the scale of written indignation being bombarded onto this forum for any of Cringely’s mishandling of Mineserver seems to have gone way beyond the scope of any harm received, and into the realm of a personal vendetta geared towards “teaching that whippersnapper a lesson” by sentencing him to two years in prison for cutting the head off of a parking meter
Well…..judge not, lest ye be judged. Or let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Or something like that. But if it was me, I’d let it go. Way too much effort and energy spent on writings to a small mainly disinterested audience.
Think of all the other uses of that time that would have been more rewarding…..learning a new program language or a new OS, writing phone apps, rebuilding a ’69 Mustang (or a ’68 Norton Commando or a ’66 Jaguar XKE etc.), becoming an amateur gourmet cook, learning martial arts, traveling, chasing after younger women, WHATEVER.
And that includes me…just wasted an hour writing this post that probably won’t interest more than 10 people (if that). But I had to say my piece just once, in writing. I guess I come down on the “Cringely Loyalist” side of things, after 33 years of reading him.
So Illegitimi non carborundum, Cringely…..I’m betting that, like me, you still got a lot of us who appreciate your insight, so please keep those columns coming.
Thank you Ken… for spending the hour to give ( what seems to me ) to be a balanced overview of the state of the “99 year” war. Obviously, some people will nevertheless hold being “right” at all costs and plug away forever as though their life depends on it. I agree with mdg, and have seen it myself, how one or two loud noises can wreck an otherwise wonderful conference full of great people. In the mean time, I wish everyone a happy new year.
Roger, mate
Go and have a wank or something, you will feel much much better
Ken Dee — Victim blame much? As others have said, Bob can make this all go away by posting updates to Kickstarter. Perhaps the hour you just wasted would have been better spent asking Bob why he chooses not to (isn’t he supposedly a writer, after all). That’s all people have been asking for for 2+ years….
Hi Bob. Most startups (95%?) fail. And not for lack of trying. Blindness and natural catastrophe fall under Acts of God. The whiners need to put on their big boy pants. Meanwhile, please delete their tantrums. Your house, your rules.
@Roger
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A wise man once said: “My political philosophy has always been simple: We’re all in this together.”
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You should heed his advice.
https://youtu.be/NTxxEdBIL6Y
Why would Bob want to do anything different? He is probably getting just as much ad revenue as before and now he only has to post once every other month. Commenters are now providing most of the content. Bob just has to make an appearance every so often to get them going again.
@Robert
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I don’t see any ads.
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I remember listening to Bob’s posts, back when he was in the PBS realm. Watching Mike Rowe’s “the way I heard it” videos on YouTube, I can’t help but think … Bob could do this. “But wait,” you might say, “Bob is certainly no Mike Rowe.” Well yes, you are correct. But guess what? Mike Rowe is certainly no Bob Cringely! Besides, they don’t need to be compared to eachother. Bob can simply do his own thing, and find his own success. Production value doesn’t have to be big … Scott Adams uses his iPad and streams live to periscope, posting to YouTube after, and his audience laps it up (myself included).
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Yes, YouTube is tough, and I’m sure the 95% failure rate applies there, too … but in Bob’s favor, he has his history and experience being a content creator, and his audience.
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Plus, people *expect* YouTube comments to be toxic. The mineserver crowd can be lost in the noise. Especially with the upvote / downvote capability.
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Something to consider.
How are the new lenses doing? I had cataract surgery in my one good eye last year and it is nice to see the world again.
FYI, my post was deemed too long and was blocked, so breaking up to attempt to have better luck. Forgiveness:
@Ken, you’ve already made up your mind and likely aren’t worth responding to. For some backstory, I have the least amount of skin in the game, as I was neither a fan of Cringely before I came here 2 years ago, nor did I back the project, I simply heard about it from a friend who was recapping what his friend was going through at the time – curiosity got the better of me and I’ve been here since, enjoying the occasional post, as well as the MS comments. I’ve even participated over the years at times, taking stances on both sides, as I honestly think both parties truly have very valid points and anyone who polarizes it as “the other side is wrong” with no redeeming qualities I believe is blinded by their own malice (and I’ve seen this very thing happen on both sides).
My biggest issue with your argument, Ken, is that you seem to think that money is the only thing involved here. Based on what I’ve read over the past 2 years, it isn’t about the money, it’s about how these individuals have been treated and the principle that someone (Bob) could be getting away with taking [not $99 from a series of individuals but $35k from a collective of individuals] with little/no remorse.
Continued from above:
People bring up the blindness and fires as an excuse, but Bob dropped off the face of the planet on the KS site prior to both of those issues, and as others have said, he was not the only person involved in the project. This is after making many promises that answers were coming with very specific dates, which he has yet to fulfill. In fact, he does the same thing in these blog posts. He claimed on this very post that he would start to release his predictions, which he “will start to pump out tomorrow”. Here we are on beyond that deadline, which is VERY common for Cringely and I for one question why he EVER gives a hard deadline since he always misses it. It seems like a strange thing to do to yourself on the toxic environment of the internet.
As for the flip side of the coin, should the KS backers be flooding in on Bob’s blog? No, they should not…under normal circumstances. However, there is an exception to this in that if you look at the KS site, which I have, and navigate to the comments section and read them in their entirety, you can see that people had been reaching out both to Bob and KS and really every other place they could, BEFORE they came here. They did this for months and everything was falling on deaf ears. Someone noticed that Bob was still posting regularly on his blog, so they thought – “Hey, that’s strange. If he has internet access and can be engaged in the comments (he used to respond to comments on this blog more regularly back then), then why is he ignoring us just wondering what is happening after he made promises a few months back?”.
Continued from above:
So began an inquiry phase, of a very small select few prodding the comments and inquiring what was going on, few aware of what was about to become the next 2+ years of their lives. It was in this moment that Bob had a crossroads – log into Kickstarter and return the conversation there (as some people said, this would be the equivalent to squashing the cranks early before they got out of hand) or down the less desirable thing (for everyone involved) which is what he did – Bob started to engage with some of these individuals on his blog.
It was in this moment that the KS site became stale and people saw hope – if they respond on Bob’s blog, they will get answers/can have a dialogue. Some “Bob Loyalists” insisted that the conversation wasn’t relevant and that the conversation be moved back to KS, to which KS backers agreed. Alas, Bob never would go back to KS. And this is where we have been for 2+ years. Many backers are here with pitchforks breathing fire – gross. Many loyalists are here defending their turf with fire – gross. Many backers on the original KS site haven’t even migrated here and are more or less in the dark – gross. And then there is the weird camp of me (not sure how many are here in my situation), where I have no skin in the game and am just curious how this will all play out (oh and of course Bob, who I, and many others have said, could likely end this all if he just posted on KS and returned the conversation there).
Continued from above (last):
So all that to say, I find it strange that Loyalists aren’t more critical of the fact that Bob is ignoring YOU, his loyal supporters, and not bringing the conversation back to KS. He is letting you suffer and could end it all, or at least start to make repairs and divide the population, by taking literally 30 minutes out of his day to log into KS and post an update there. You claim that there is a time/benefit graph and that most people have gone beyond it, yet ironically Bob has done the same thing. He has spent more time arguing about the people making his blog toxic than just taking a MUCH shorter amount of time to post on KS and stop it in the first place. You also are not taking into account people’s egos. Lots of names have been thrown around here on this site and if history has taught us anything, once it gets personal, it is on.
@Ken Dee — “What are you putting so much time and energy into running Bob down HERE?”
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As has been said repeatedly (dare I say ad nauseum?), the Mineserver backers came here because Crookely abandoned the correct forum (Kickstarter) for discussing this issue. He has posted very little information here; he has posted none there.
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If you want the Mineserver issue to disappear from this forum, convince Crookely to post updates on Kickstarter.
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@Jason Osgood — “A wise man once said…”
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Wow, I never thought of myself as being particularly wise, but who am I to argue with you. Thanks!
@Insignificant Observer I’m happy someone finally said it from an unbiased view (and to know I am not alone). I also came here from an alternative source and am left scratching my head as both sides claiming “no, you just don’t get it.”. How can both sides be right and yet also not get it?
The “us vs. them” mentality is comical and how both sides are ultimately using the same logic to disprove each other and think they are right. I mean, is it possible you BOTH are correct and that Bob should just move this conversation to KS? Just a crazy thought!
@Insignificant Observer
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Thank you for your calm, reasoned, and well-informed analysis.
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“…by taking literally 30 minutes out of his day to log into KS and post an update there.”
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I will note that *someone* from the Mineserver project *has* logged in to Kickstarter, as recently as January 7, 2019.
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(Anyone can verify this by going to the Kickstarter page — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/583591444/mineservertm-a-99-home-minecraft-server — and clicking on “Mineserver LLC” under “Created by” on the right side.)
@Jimmy Leans — “…that Bob should just move this conversation to KS?”
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I certainly can’t speak for any other backers, but that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Post an update on Kickstarter, even if it’s just “Sorry, didn’t work out, it’s over.” (Ideally, a little more eloquently than that, given he fancies himself a writer, but you get the idea.)
Let me know where I can send you a calendar…
We should make the Cringely drinking game…
Every time cringely says mindserver take a drink
Every time he twists logic to somehow try and convince us he was right when clearly he wasn’t take a drink.
Every time cringely says he’ll do something “tomorrow” take a shot.
Heck, that last one will wipe everyone out, so there’s probably no point in more rules.
Bob, this is actually quite a depressing column. As a Mineserver Pro backer I understood the risk and was happy to help your kids try their hand at running a small company. I’d hoped to receive a product but was not crushed or surprised when it didn’t happen. Hardware is difficult. I realized long ago this wasn’t going to work and that’s totally fine. Please accept it yourself and move on and stop putting your kids in front of this nonsense. If you end up surprising folks in a year with something, fine. But for now, it’s time to declare defeat and move on.
I have thus far avoided saying much about the whole Mineserver thing, as there were already other people saying plenty enough about it, and having not put any of my own money into the project, it didn’t seem like my battle to fight. While I can understand people’s rancor over the lack of information on what happened after they invested $99 of their own money into a project which they saw value in, there are bigger problems in our world, and so I’ve mostly kept my distance since I didn’t have a lot to say that hadn’t already been said.
But in this article, Bob has made it clear that he’s not quite tuned into reality on this matter. Bob is blaming his own backers for being upset. He claims that he might have secured investment backing in the project by now, if only it weren’t for the fact that people are complaining about not having any Mineservers despite these servers being allegedly nearly finished at the end of 2016. There are two problems with this mentality: First of all, you are not going to be able to avoid negative impressions of the project at this point, no matter what people are saying. Even if not a single person complained, even if every single backer waited patiently for an eternity and had only positive things to say, any investor would look at the timeline and see a dead loss. When there’s been no progress on the project for more than two years, investors realize that the project is dead and are not going to invest any of their own money into something that doesn’t show much promise for the future and nothing but a total loss for the past.
The second problem with Bob’s thinking is the implicit assumption that, even if everything had been going well, there would be investors (or even just a single investor) willing to invest a lot of money into this project. The Mineserver was never a game-changing product, even when it was first conceived. As others have noted here many times, “zero-configuration networking” exists on many commercial networking products and is by no means unique to the Mineserver; RFC 3927, which defines the protocol that the idea is more or less based on, was already published in 2005, a decade before the Mineserver project. Seriously now: What does the Mineserver do that any other single-board computer (most famously the Raspberry Pi, but also countless others like the BeagleBoard, Arduino, ASUS Tinker Board, Banana Pi, and PandaBoard just to name the most popular ones) can’t do? Any of those other products are general-purpose computers that can do much more than host Minecraft, and now this group of kids comes along and says they programmed a single-board computer to run as a Minecraft server, which is a very specific application that few people are going to have a specific need for, or be willing to buy as a stand-alone product when they could get a general-purpose computer in a similar form factor for less money.
One gets the feeling that Bob thinks Minecraft today is still what it was in 2015/2016. Here’s a valuable bit of market research: Go to Google Trends and find out how much search interest in Minecraft has waned in the past couple of years. You’ll see that search interest in Minecraft peaked around 2015/2016 and today is less than half of where it was back then. Even if everything had gone well with the Mineserver project, Minecraft itself is off its peak. Sure, there are still people playing it, but it’s no longer “hot” enough to generate a lot of interest, particularly not for a specialty product that serves a very niche market which is already pretty much satisfied: Anyone who wants a Minecraft server has already built one by now. The Mineserver is a superfluous product serving a saturated market.
I’m sympathetic to Bob’s situation: Having your house burn down is a tragedy and a huge loss, both emotionally and materially. But Bob can’t place the blame on his backers or claim that he would’ve found an investor by now “if it weren’t for those darned pitchforks.” This claim borders on delusional: The problem isn’t that people are upset, and you can’t expect people to be anything other than upset after being kept in the dark for years about what happened with the money they invested. Bob is still slinging marketing slogans, claiming that the potential for a Mineserver business is still “better than ever” despite the market being gone and most former backers concluding that they don’t realy need or even want a Mineserver anymore. If Bob really sincerely believes that the Minserver business “could turn around on a dime and grow to a surprisingly large size”, then I’m sorry, but he’s living in a different world. Wake up, Bob: People aren’t even upset because they want their Mineservers anymore, they just want closure on this whole story so they can move on and forget about it. It’s over. You should not be ashamed of the loss; the wildfires in California were not your fault. Just come clean, tell your backers what happened, and move on from this crazy obsession which has no future.
The aging boomer demographic on display here is truly amazing. I can’t wait for you all to die.
How many people believe that Cringely actually had ‘completed Mineservers’ lost in a fire at his house?
I looked in on John C. Dvorak, whose columns I once enjoyed, and found him fired by PC Mag and instead presiding over a Twitter echo chamber of far-right, conspiracy-loving cranks.
I looked in on Cringely and found him peddling vaporware and playing host to an assortment of detractors, boosters and bewildered onlookers (I’m now in the last category).
My wife regularly reminds me not to argue with the crazy people…
Happy Birthday🎂🎂🎂 🎂🎂 🎂🎂 🎂🎂🎂 🎂🎂 🎂🎂 🎂🎂🎂 🎂🎂 🎂🎂 !!!
🎂( one Missing 🙂
@MikeN — “How many people believe that Cringely actually had ‘completed Mineservers’ lost in a fire at his house?”
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Well, we know Bob has “stretched the truth” (to put it nicely) in the past, for example about having a PhD from Stanford and working as a professor there (just do an internet search). There’s been no verifiable proof that mineserver boards and cases were ever ordered, or for that matter that his house burned down (one fuzzy picture of a fire off in the distance doesn’t count). It’s all — entirely — based on taking Bob at his word….
Dear Bob,
I still remember 20 years ago, when there were no tablets and wifi, i always was pleased to print out your weekly column and read it on the sofa, this was really a highlight back then, always interesting infos and theories/predictions! thanks!!!
looking forward to your “longterm”-predictions
Thomas
@Mitch Wright – John C Dvorak (JCD) was let go by PC magazine mainly after he trashed 5G in an article. Qualcomm has strong native advertising involvement with PC magazine, so thus were not pleased with any negativity toward 5G. For eleven years JCD has been co-produceing a news deconstruction podcast (No Agenda). It is neither left or right wing but strives to expose the hidden motives/agendas of politicians/governments/big_business. Not a twitter echo chamber either. They dig detail on news stories to find under/incorrect reporting …. or examine multiple reports and show the bias (of what should be unbiased). Most recent podcast exposed the terrible national news reporting of the wealthy commerce secretary supposedly recommending 9% bridge loans for federal employees duing the government shutdown. The more accurate story from local media was that 0% 30 day loans were available from nearly every federal credit union. In The Morning to everyone.
Before you retire(which I highly recommend BTW) I wanted to thank you again for your tireless, insightful, incisive coverage of the decline of IBM. It was once the paragon of the computer business, and American business generally. After your coverage, it was plain for all the world to see that the emperor(and now empress) had no clothes.
While we humans are almost as bad at prediction as we are at building a sustainable economy that won’t destroy our home planet, I’m wondering if these will be among your final predictions:
1) Will this be a prediction? they will finally put guard rails on social media and the web more broadly, removing the capability to post anonymously, by issuing unbreakable digital identity credentials, thereby allowing the social forces defined over millenia to eliminate malevolent behavior(trolling, manipulation of elections etc) that would be impermissible or impossible in normal social circumstance, thereby relegating anonymous content to an untrusted backwater(like FB)
2)Will this be a prediction? all this mindless chatter about computer games(mineserver etc) will turn out to be nothing more than the vengeful rants of IBM VPs in retaliation for your relentless attempts to expose their financial engineering stupidity and self serving greed
Happy Birthday Bob! I have been a long time follower and now a two-time commenter.
Please keep up the articles, predictions, etc. As enticing as retirement is, there are many who would love to see you regularly in the media. Seasoned insight is hard to find.
My post a few years ago was essentially about people whining “Where is my FREE iCringely?”
I don’t follow Minecraft or video games. But if these whiners only invested $99 (or anything remotely close), then they should consider it their membership fee to iCringely media. These people probably waste more than that on weekly in-app game purchases while drinking Starbucks. 😉
Online opinion personalities such as Steven Crowder charge $99/year to access their channel. Ignore the mob and keep doing what you do best — great technical industry insight from someone who has been around long enough to understand the industry.
Remember, there are many who silently read and appreciate your work.
Yes, I am aware that Dvorak has a podcast. I also read his last column on PC Mag online.
I think that a quick view of Dvorak’sTwitter content will give most people an idea of its slant. Two days ago he asserted that Hillary Clinton will be “the candidate”, which is a perfect example of why I have lost all interest in his opinions.
Back to “Cringley”, there is no Mineserver, if there ever was. Silencing criticism in these comments would be possible if anyone actually approved comments. As it is, a verifiable email address is not even required. But this would not change the fact that “Bob” sold something that never went out the door, nor the fact that he has never come clean on the site where he raised the funds.
If anyone still believes in that pipe dream, good luck. Unfortunately, however, the author is destroying his credibility — at least with me.
Oh, my bad, “Cringely” is the pseudonym.
@Adam Luoranen:
Thank you! You have a very firm grasp of the situation. You said everything that needs to be said. Everyone – both sides and bewildered spectators as well – should read your comment several times. But most of all, Bob needs to read it. Let’s have some closure. I think we all agree it’s time to move on.
Pitchforker: Um…now look, mate, I’ve definitely had enough of this. This Mineserver project is definitely deceased, and after I backed it to the tune of $99, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to some component that was going to arrive next week.
Bob: Well, it’s… it’s, ah… probably pining for investors from the fjords.
Pitchforker: Pining for investors from the fjords?! What kind of talk is that? Look here, why has this project been lying flat on its back the whole time?
Bob: The Cringely Mineserver is meant to lie flat on its back! Remarkable device, isn’t it, squire? Lovely cases!
Pitchforker: Look, I took the liberty of examining that project on Kickstarter, and I discovered it has been deserted since November 2016.
(pause)
Bob: Well, of course it was deserted! If I had made any updates, it would have taken off too soon, and Voom! Feeweeweewee!
Pitchforker: Voom?! Mate, this project wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through it! It’s bleedin’ demised!
Bob: No, no! It’s pining for investors!
Pitchforker: It’s not pining! It’s passed on! This project is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet it’s maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t deserted it on Kickstarter, it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its electronic processes are now history! It’s deleted! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off it’s mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-MINESERVER!!
(pause)
Bob: Well, I’d better do something about it, then.
(He takes a quick peek round his garage)
Bob: Sorry, squire, I’ve had a look round the back of the garage, and uh, we’re right out of Mineservers. But we’ll be shipping them the week after next.
@GreenWyvern Very serious question – how did you get paragraph spacing like that? Everyone who tries to carriage returns always results in two lines stacked on top of one another like this:
New Paragraph. So people tend to put punctuation in the middle like this:
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New Paragraph. You must divulge your secrets.
@Young Grasshopper
The secret is using one of the Unicode characters for non-standard spaces!
Go to BabelMap Online, and then the General Punctuation block in the dropdown at the top. You’ll see several special space characters. Any of them will do.
@GreenWyvern I once was blind, but now I see…
😍 So this is love… 😍
(Thanks)
Mineserver. A great demonstration of why Bob Cringely *writes* about technology rather than *creating* technology!
@Vincente — “These people probably waste more than that on weekly in-app game purchases while drinking Starbucks.”
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Way to make unfounded assumptions that support your prejudices instead of actually doing any research.
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“…they should consider it their membership fee to iCringely media.”
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“Online opinion personalities such as Steven Crowder charge $99/year to access their channel.”
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That’s all well and good, except that a lot of Kickstarter backers aren’t really interested in what Crookely has to say on anything other than the Mineserver project. So, no.
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What we paid our $99 for was to get updates about the Mineserver project *on the Kickstarter site* (and, ideally, to receive a Mineserver.) That’s what we never got; that’s what we want.
Just to give some background (since everyone seems to be doing it), I personally enjoying some ideas that Bob brings to the table on this blog, but am less of a fan of him as a person based on how he carries himself and speaks towards others. That said, I think I’m starting to gather a very common theme here in these comments, from both sides and everyone in between – kill the project.
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Bob, admit you failed, and move on. No one wants this software and prolonging it is ruining your blog, your reputation, and annoying your loyal fans and backers alike.
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That said, if Bob DOES kill the project, this is what I foresee happening, because, well…Bob:
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Bob: *I* was ready to work on this and make it a thing and deliver. But if *YOU* all want it dead, I can’t fight that. [insert rant about why the ks backers are the worst]. Okay, you’ve made up your minds and I can’t sway you. I will walk away from this as the bigger man…
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Basically turning his failure around as the backers being the ones who caused it to fail (just like he’s trying to do in this post and lack of investors/funding). Bob, I’m not sure what happened in your life to cause your ego to inflate to these scales, but I’ve met children with more self-awareness than you.
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GL to all you backers, but I’m pretty sure you’re fighting a lose-lose battle here. If Bob produces the software, no one cares and you have a useless product. If he cancels it, he’ll likely blame you and you’ll be left with an empty feeling that nothing was even accomplished (and any attempts at that point to argue this will be seen as “never being satisfied. Bob gave you what you wanted and you still won’t go away.”). I’m sorry to say it, but I think you’re F’ed. Godspeed!
…which I will start to pump out tomorrow…
@SQRL We’re all part of a social experiment that Bob is conducting. One in which he has the last laugh and none of the rest of us wins. The joke is on him – our world is just a simulation and his life isn’t any more worthwhile than the rest of ours…
And for today’s performance, the role of Kefka will be played by Bob…
–
Resistance How long are you going to let the destruction continue?
Kefka I’ve tapped into the ultimate power. Observe…! Such magnificent power! You are like insects to me! I will exterminate everyone, and everything!
Resistance People will keep rebuilding the things you take from them!
Kefka Then I’ll destroy those too. Why do people rebuild things they know are going to be destroyed? Why do people cling to life when they know they can’t live forever? Think how meaningless each of your lives is!
Resistance It’s not the net result of one’s life that’s important! It’s the day-to-day concerns, the personal victories, and the celebration of life… and love! It’s enough if people are able to experience the joy that each day can bring!
Kefka And have you found your “joy” in this nearly dead world of ours?
Resistance Yes!
test
test
test
Yep, it’s the pitchfork people who killed investor confidence…
Not the fact that bob can’t meet deadline like “coming tomorrow” articles.
He may have great ideas, but fails constantly on follow through.
Anyone else remember the tin foil hard drives?
Maybe his followers could convert them to hats if they believe what he says.
Happy birthday Bob
Been following since the print days, very sad too hear this might be your last year at it, loved your unique view and insight on all things tech.
A request if I may, I would love to hear about what killed some of the projects that never made it off the ground, the tiny rovers on the moon for example, before you close the curtain on this little rag
Speaking as an escort I have to say client management is very important. I never let my clients get away with brinksmanship because they instantly become ex clients. Returning to Cringelys claims about finished Minservers he could answer a fewquestions very quickly. Can we see scans of the reciepts for the Mineserver components? Scans also of his insurance claim and decision by his insurance company? As they say on the internet “Pic or it never happened”.
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At the moment Cringelky is behaving like a thug who wants his ‘gasm without paying for it. Escorts talk and word gets around and in the end the client won’t be able to getit no matter how much money they wave. From experience I know that clients on the shit list don’t change. Unless Cringely has found a n00b of a start-up I’m doubting he has anything.
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From Cringelys own admission his lucrative consulting work was most Japanese who believed what they saw on television and thought he was “a connected guy”. Maybe once but I’m not reading anything on “I, Cringely” to indicate he is now nor can produce anything notable. Perhaps he does have experience but there are dozens of articles across the web for every blog he produces from younger and more energetic journalists than him leaving him in the dust.
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My job is to drain a mans balls or his wallet, whichever happens first. Age isn’t an issue. I have clients of all ages. The problem is usually something else.
Bob,
I think it’s time to sign off
You can apologize or not as you do it.
If you are unwilling to call it a day on the project I think you would be making a big mistake.
Look around, everybody makes mistakes, whether willfully or under the heading of “Shit Happens”
Take a break, people are the most forgiving creatures on this planet, they will forgive, most have a long, decades long, relationship with you and still respect those decades of work you did in the field.
Take a break don’t disappear, make a public statement that you’re taking a year or so .
Get a job at Trader Joes, Caltech, anywhere that you can get out of this space for a while because you’re not doing yourself or your family any good here.
Come back in a while and blow our minds with something new….or not, but come back, you will be forgiven.
We all know you’ve been through hell, if my house burned down with my “life” in it I’d be a total disaster.
Take a break
Happy Birthday Bob! The Mineserver controversy always reminds me that you’re the man who tried to single-handedly build a plane in 30 days! Good luck with everything
Happy Birthday Bob! The Mineserver controversy always reminds me that you’re in over your head and need to get out with what little dignity you still have. No one wants it any longer, no one buys your excuses/blame. Can you just call it so everyone can move on? Also when you finally do pull the plug, maybe you can be bothered to take a few minutes and post it on the KickStarter page; That’d be the classy thing to do, anyways…
Minecraft peaked five and half years ago … now its popularity is 1/4 of what it was then.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01%202019-02-04&q=minecraft
Time to move on.
I had not heard of this mineserver before … anyone care to comment? The third link below shows the lion’s share of their code was written in 2011, with updates in 2012 and 2016.
Homepage – https://mineserver.be/
Codebase – https://github.com/fador/mineserver
Code commit history – https://github.com/fador/mineserver/graphs/code-frequency
“Two thirds done, yet still [waiting for] predictions…”
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“my tech predictions … which I will start to pump out tomorrow”
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I read that and thought “pump out” could as easily mean “write” as it could “publish” so it could be a few days before we see anything, but it’s been a week, so…
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Mineserver much?
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@roger
After years of reading, I don’t think I’ve ever seen RXC follow up a post with its promised successor at the promised time. At this point, I think it’s deliberate, in a “keep them wanting more” kind of way. After all, who’s silly at this point: Bob for doing what he’s always done, or people complaining because they expect something else?
“Mineserver much?”
Only my grandson.
Bob and Mineserver have been a conversation topic between a friend and I over the years. I just wanted to share a personal breakthrough moment we had, that isn’t exactly new to the comments here, but just had us pause and re-frame the idea in a different light. There’s really no sense in anyone fighting or arguing here in the comments. We all are truly in this together. Whether you’re here wanting to see Bob’s technology insights, or wanting an update or closure on Mineserver, everyone is essentially asking for the same thing – Bob to clean house. Keep his blog stuff to this blog, go put Kickstarter conversations back on Kickstarter (and ideally actually have a conversation or updates there). But there’s no sense resorting to being so antagonizing to one another. For valid reasons, people want to focus on Bob’s content. For valid reasons, other people want information on Mineserver (and for valid reasons, bring those requests here). And I’d like to think everyone could agree on this one simple plea – Bob, please come clean, and get this stuff in order.
The check is in the mail . . . The Minecraft server will be available this year . . .
@Bored, Honestly I think that is the best course of action at this point. I’ve been following Bob since the PBS days and I think I speak for everyone when I say it would be refreshing if we could go back to how things once were before we had an influx of Mineserver folks. That said, I’m not entirely sure we can blame them if they can’t get answers elsewhere and Bob is posting about Mineservers here.
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If everyone can pause for a moment and stop fighting one another, we can just ask that Bob take 10 minutes out of his day to update the Kickstarter site. From this point, those who want information about the Mineserver can converse with Bob there, and those who want the content Bob offers can continue to get it here. Never again do the two populations need to cross.
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I’m baffled why Bob has allowed this to go on for as long as it has. I don’t care who is right/wrong, everyone has made valid points, but the recurring theme seems to be – Bob has the power to end this and it’s not clear to me why he hasn’t while all of us (both sides) suffer.
i guess you borrowed the title of this column from the blog name of the one intel engineer you some time ago linked to, marcel…?!
Cringely predicts that this may be his last list of predictions, and it will be out real soon now. Yep, any day. Tomorrow. Or the day after. Or months from now. Or never.
…
One of the things I miss the least about my former tech support career is all the time I spent waiting for something to happen. A download, update, software install, reboot. Ever notice that Wondows actually tells you that something is “100 percent complete” when it is still working feverishly on something and making you wait some more?
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Maybe I’ll blog on this while Bob works on whatever it is he’s actually working on. Not that anyone reads my blog, but at least it keeps me off the data mining, privacy sucking world of social media.
Mitch Wright, an alternative to Bob sitting on his hands while the rest of us squabble? Sure, I’ll bite and check out your blog. Anything to avoid this headache. Thanks! Hey Bob, not sure if you’ve noticed, but you’re not just upsetting your backers. The rest of us, who have been loyal to you for over a decade, are starting to get a little fed up with you as well. Why is it you aren’t posting about the Minecraft Servers on KickStarter and are doing it here instead? Sounds like most of the backers will leave us alone if you did, assuming you’re even reading these comments…
Gerome, you might enjoy one about the weird shares of various Windows versions in use, from XP to Win10:
https://mstuartwright.com/2019/01/13/to-windows-10-or-not-that-is-the-question/
😘
I see the player you mean.
PLAYERNAME?
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.
It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.
That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on sticks powered by demons.
What did this player dream?
This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.
Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?
It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the [scrambled], and created a [scrambled] for [scrambled], in the [scrambled].
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.
To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.
It reads our thoughts.
Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely [scrambled] and [scrambled], I wish to tell them that they are [scrambled] in the [scrambled]. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.
And yet they play the game.
But it would be so easy to tell them…
Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I will not tell the player how to live.
The player is growing restless.
I will tell the player a story.
But not the truth.
No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.
Give it a body, again.
Yes. Player…
Use its name.
PLAYERNAME. Player of games.
Good.
Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.
Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
We are the universe. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a player.
The player was you, PLAYERNAME.
Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third.
Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.
Let’s go back.
The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body.
And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother’s body, into the long dream.
And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love.
You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.
Let’s go further back.
The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player’s body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by…
Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks “electrons” and “protons”.
Sometimes it called them “planets” and “stars”.
Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen.
You are the player, reading words…
Shush… Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breathe faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive
You. You. You are alive.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player’s eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream
and the universe said I love you
and the universe said you have played the game well
and the universe said everything you need is within you
and the universe said you are stronger than you know
and the universe said you are the daylight
and the universe said you are the night
and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
and the universe said the light you seek is within you
and the universe said you are not alone
and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code
and the universe said I love you because you are love.
And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
You are the player.
Wake up.
@Joe, you are a babe! 😘
I am not a Kickstarter backer. But I check up on this project. It is odd that you do not update the Kickstarter page for your backers. Give them an update on that page.
Still no scans of Minserver component receipts or insurance company letters? Where did the money go?
I’m a long time lurker of the column since the days of dial up, bu I only come here now to see how long the mineserver debacle takes to resolve itself. The way Bob has treated both the kickstarter backers and his readers is remarkable.
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He launched the project right here, with lots of fanfare how he would entertain us with his insights into the process. You can’t blame the backers for coming here for updates, it is their only source of information, and Bob tied the project to this blog from day 1.
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https://www.cringely.com/2015/09/29/the-cringely-boys-kickstart-mineserver-a-99-minecraft-server/
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Just like the emperor’s new clothes, the statements he’s made here since 2015 have made me think more critically about everything he says, and unfortunately I now don’t believe a single word.
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I’ll be glad when mineserver is put to sleep because then I can delete this blog from my life completely, but until then I’m coming here to see exactly how big a mess he makes of it and a couple of giggles.
Two quotes from the front page of the Mineserver Kickstarter site sum up everyone’s frustration:
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“If we had cases we could start shipping tomorrow.”
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“All that still needs to be finished is the final case tooling, which is coming from a U.S. supplier. That tooling — and pre-ordering a large enough supply of other components at volume prices — is what the $15,000 is for.”
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This was sold to backers as a sure thing, and should have shipped within a few months of receiving the funding….
It’s all about the clicks. Check back tomorrow for updates! clicks = $
Jeff Bezos is in the news. The Atlantic has an article titled “Jeff Bezos Brings the Receipts” and “Jeff Bezos writes a blog post”. Both are interesting reading and in a way a sideways glance at this blog. The funny thing is it’s me, an escort (or classy prositute for those in the cheap seats) who is asking for the beleagured Cringley, a journalist with his own semi-pornographic history, to produce the receipts and insurance claim documentation. Under the circumstances extorting his own backers sits uneasily with where things should be.
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In retrospect Bezos should have hired a professional. Yes, an exclusive is terrifyingly expensive but is much cheaper than a divorce. I am also able to advise clients about their security. Confidentiality and discretion is a given.
@jim
Seriously, what $? I see zero ads. Am I hallucinating?
—–
Someone should look through the last few dozen RXC posts to see which ones promise a future post, and then gather statistics on promised time vs actual time. Hey, maybe we could call it “Bob time” kinda like how SpaceX has “Elon time” (i.e. he promises a certain innovation in 12 months, and routinely it’s 18 months before it happens … roughly 1.5x the last promise, and even then it’s a moving target).
I think Bob has made the determination that is far more accurate to create 2019 predictions in late December of 2019 than it is to speculate in January of 2019
With predictions it helps if you have inside knownledge about the eventual outcome.As Cringelys sources either having expired or pulled the rip cord I expect his task of making reasonably accurate predictions is a lot harder.
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Predictions with the escort industry are very difficult. As an escort I can make predictions about othersectors but this varies with my client base plus there is the issue of client confidentiality. I very definately have sources I can leverage with respect to 5G and supply chains and this puts me in an ethical dilemna. I have valuable information I cannot use or disclose. The funny thing is I expect my clients care less about this than I do. In theory public interest arguments exist but don’t in practice extend outside of the courts or journalism or other equivalent legitimate avenues. Could I sell this knowledge or monitize it in any way like Cringely? In theory yes. In practice no and for the reasons already discussed plus I’m just not this kind of person. I don’t morally or emotionally believe in exploitation.
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I’m curious what Bob said or did to cause his US based sources or his mostly Japanese consultancy work to dry up. I’m guessing China. I expect most businesses are tightening up and as Bob is outside of the loop nobody is being loose lipped with him. There is also the big economic tilt towards Chinese based supply chains as China has become a more important market. Since his break with PBS and his post-boom inability to generate a headline with new and younger and much faster moving media having entered the market it may just be that Bob is past retirement in practice if not in theory.
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Men don’t see me to discuss business or technology but I have definately helped both professional clients and business owners navigate difficulties including high end and high margin and in one case a long valued contract with a very difficult major client. Lots of my clients are married and in one specific case said they were unable to discuss issues with other professionals due to the office politics of their industry and unable to discuss them with family or friends because they lacked the academic and technical expertise. Ultimately, it’s the clients call but I must admit I do like my brain being as valued as my body.
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I should start my own blog but yuck. The effort and need to network is a trial in its own right.
What about the boys, Bob? What lessons will they learn about business and life from the Mineserver fiasco? That is the most important thing for you to consider as you figure out how to resolve the situation.
@trashtalk-
Yes, you should start your own blog. Why not? You’ve obviously got something to say. The mere process of putting it into words may be worth the effort.
Will we get the predictions before SQRL is ready?
@trashtalk – Your comments are the most entertaining here. You should definitely start a blog. Then write a book.
Plenty of you guys have lots to say. There’s huge challenges in the world. It’s a big opportunity. At the end of the day it’s Cringely blog whatever we may say about him and I’m not going to throw shade on anyone. It’s not my style. Cringely has options. I guess we all do even if we can’t always see them.
Hi,
Just so people know, I did have a possible way forward on the Minecraft server project and did submit it a while ago. It is still possible to do, but I can understand that if Cringley and company can get a new set of financing and get it all done at once, that it would be the better way to go. My way would work also but could take months or even years to deliver to all of the Kickstarter backers.
What I proposed, is that I would use one of my registered companies in Massachusetts, Intercontinental Trading Corp, to make very small batches of Minecraft servers, like 4 or 8 at a time, for sale in the retail market. I did do some research, including buying the single board computer, that I believed was used to get an idea as to how the setup would be and costs to assemble either version of the Minecraft server from the project. Based on all of this, I believed the gross margin could be 33% to 50% per server sold at retail. From Cringley and the kids, I would need permission and a license for what they had plus the special software and setup they had developed.
The idea is that I would sign a non exclusive license with them for the project and for every three or four servers I sold at retail, I would then make a server and ship to a backer from the Kickstarter project. Eventually, when (if?) enough servers sold at retail, all of the Kickstarter backers would get their product.
My hope, is that if things went well enough, Cringley and the kids would continue to allow Intercontinental Trading Corp to have a license to sell the Minecraft servers since once all of the backers got what was due them, Cringey and the kids would get royalties and not have to do any work. I and my company would be happy because now we would have a flagship product with a user base, and hope to go on to new such projects in the future, like maybe a Fortnight server or whatever was the current popular game going on at the time.
I think the big problem in getting a large amount of financing is ‘what is total demand’ for the Minecraft Server? I would recommend only making very small runs, because if all of the demand for such things was all in the Kickstarter project, then there is no way to ever make a profit for anyone following up and all of the money is at risk; BUT with only small runs of 4 or 8 servers at a time, then the risk is limited to $1,000 or less at any one time; i.e no worry about another fire and tens of thousands of dollars going up in flames in an hour.
In any case, I do believe that something can be worked out since the hardware and software does exist and the product does work. The problem is just getting the servers made in some manner and sent out.
Good Luck and Take Care,
Louis J. Desy Jr.
@Louis J Desy Jr — There’s nothing stopping you from packaging a ready-to-run SBC-based Minecraft server and selling it.
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There are plenty of articles and tutorials explaining how to set up a such a server using a Raspberry Pi (search “minecraft server raspberry pi”) including a dedicated Linux distro called “CraftBian” (http://cba.today/craftbian_rpi/). If you don’t want to pay for CraftBian, you can (depending on your level of expertise) use a free distro (Raspbian, for example) and set things up yourself. I’m not sure how necessary Crookely’s condescending and misogynist “managed by Mom” bit is.
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The advantage of using a Raspberry Pi is that they’re well-supported, readily available, and, frankly, dirt cheap (less than $40 at Amazon — https://amzn.to/2Ijq3S2). Cases are available cheaply as well, or you can 3D print ones yourself if you want something custom — there are plenty of designs available on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=raspberry+pi) you can use as a starting point. (If you need someone to customize a case in Solidworks, drop me a note — my son can help out.)
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In any case, if you think there are enough people still out there looking for an off-the-shelf Minecraft server, there’s no need to cut Crookely or his backers in on the action. (Though it would be really nice if you did — kudos to you!) My youngest still plays Minecraft some, but not enough that I would pay another $100 for a server — especially since I have various Raspberry Pis, Pine64s, Onion Omegas, and so on lying around waiting for me to have time to do something with.
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As for the Mineserver Kickstarter project, I can only speak for myself but I’m not so upset about not getting a Mineserver (although since it was billed as “If we had cases we could start shipping tomorrow,” I am a little miffed) as I am about not getting honest updates about the project.
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As I’ve said before, if Crookely simply posted **on the Kickstarter site** an update saying “Hey, I went blind and then my house burned down with all the Mineservers so it’s over”, I’d be satisfied. Ideally, I think he could write a bit more than that (he does, after all, purport to be a writer), but all in all, that’s what I’m primarily looking for at this time.
On January 28th, Crookely wrote “…my tech predictions for the coming year, which I will start to pump out tomorrow.”
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Two weeks later, and no predictions. Frankly, I don’t really care about them, but I have to wonder why he would continually shoot himself in the foot. I mean, instead of “tomorrow” (8 letters), he could have written “shortly” (7 letters) or even simply “soon” (4 letters). Perhaps he’s a good typist and doesn’t mind typing more, in which case he could have written “in the near future”, “in the coming weeks”, or, perhaps most appropriate for him, “Real Soon Now.”
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I’m starting to think Crookely might suffer from dyschronia and is unable to tell a day from a week, an hour from a year.
https://youtu.be/JDeCDxoVt2U
Mark Stevens is obviously either a crook, suffering from mental illness or dementia.
He can’t even get his annual predictions out 6 weeks into the year, despite saying in public in this blog post would do so ‘tomorrow’…bizarre behaviour.
If it’s the latter and his brain has deteriorated to this point, I feel genuinely sorry for Mark and his family.
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt as he has become increasingly incoherent and out of touch over the past few years. His predictions less accurate or relevant and his posts less frequent and less interesting.
It’s a real shame because he used to be a great commentator.
But if he is simply a crook who took my son’s (now 10 yo) hard earned money (carwash’s and lemonade stands) in a blatant rip off and continues to string people along, then I hope he is burning in his skin and suffers the karma he deserves.
Reply to Roger Sinasohn:
I did do a test setup of a Minecraft server but there are things that the Kickstater project has that I do not have which would be needed to make a successful product:
1: The Linux distros changed over time, so there are modifications that need to be done to get it all to work where as the Kickstarter project already has a fully working setup.
2: There is a special program they made to make it easier for the server to be findable over the internet and that programming was done as part of the project. If I did my own I would have to duplicate that work.
3: The Minecraft server Kickstarter project does have an IP license from Microsoft to use the Minecraft name for the server. Anything I did I would have to renegotiate that part.
For these reasons, while I could do my own Minecraft server, I would have to duplicate work that has already been done by Cringley and the kids, so the easier route would be to get that project going again and delivered. Another benefit is that by delivering on the project there would be a few hundred server out in use to provide feedback on any problems and a base of users who, over time, would learn the product and possibly form a body of knowledge on what to do when there are problems or how to improve the product. Making my own server would have none of that. I also hope that by being able to deliver on the Kickstarter project it would eventually build up some goodwill and even be a possible ‘service line’ for my company;i.e. we come in, evenutally deliver on the Kickstarter project to all backers, and then have a new product that would be a steady seller over time with the creators getting royalities forever.
Good Luck and Take Care,
Louis J. Desy Jr.
@Louis Desy Most of your logic makes sense except for #1, as I’m not sure Bob ever had a fully working setup. Every KS update seemed to alternate between “we have a product finally ready to go” and “we have discovered a new issue which requires us to scrap and rework a lot of the code”.
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It ultimately landed on – “we’ll finally start shipping the week after Thanksgiving” in Nov 2016 and then he went radio silent for years. His house didn’t “burn down” until about a year (the following fall), so it is presumed that they ran into another issue (likely a bigger one that they couldn’t surmount/solve) and decided to not announce it. If they truly had a working product in Nov 2016 and all that needed to be done was ship them out, I highly doubt they would have just sat on this product for a year only to have it “burn up in a fire” almost a year later.
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But hey, if I’m wrong and Bob can make a deal with you, I support it just to end the drama. I’m just wary that you may be taking a sucker’s bet to trust that Bob has anything functional to actually deliver. At the very least, you’d want to make the deal contingent that the product works I’d think. Best of luck to you in your endeavor!
@Keeping It Real
Yes, my whole premise is that there is a full working model and my ‘part’, if ever any, would be to just take that and make clones of it.
Now, if there is no fully working model, then it would be much harder to get the project done.
I did make some attempts on my own to make some kind of working Minecraft server but I had all kinds of version problems plus never could seem to get it all to be discoverable over the internet. My understanding is that Cringley and kids solved all those problems so I did not really make any effort to pursue my own solution, since why would I want to spend lots of my time to fix things that were probably already solved by Cringley and kids?
My expectation is that eventually this can be completed. I can understand wanting to go the ‘full financing’ route (raise all of the money needed at once and make all few hundred servers at the same time) but for whatever reason it may not be very feasible; large companies may think demand is way too small to become involved and small companies may fear that all of the demand for such a product is gone. I think my middle solution is a way to get this done with minimal risk to everyone. I even offered a non exclusive license so if eventually a large company came along and wanted to run with the product, my work would not prevent that from happening. Now, my hope is that over time the Minecraft server would be a steady seller, and Cringley and kids would be happy to get royalties and everyone would benefit plus the Kickstarter backers orders would all get filled, and new buyers would like the product.
It would not all be easy since my estimate is that at best, it would take, at least, on average 15 minutes per server to make, so a batch of 8 servers would take 2 hours to make, so every day this project would take up some time and have to be done so orders would get filled but I think it could get done.
Good Luck and Take Care,
Louis J. Desy Jr.
Louis Desy, what you say makes sense, but I think to Keeping It Real’s point, based on the timeline of promises vs. silence for nearly a year before the product was destroyed in the house fire, it makes one skeptical that Bob and family ever really had a working product at all, otherwise they would have shipped it out during those months of silence. Logic states that the more likely scenario is they ran into an issue they could not overcome and decided to keep it under wraps either:
A.) Until they solved it or
B.) Because they could not figure out how to resolve it and didn’t want to admit defeat on KickStarter, lest they feel obligated to refund people’s money or face backlash from not doing so.
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All speculation, of course, but given the timeline, I am inclined to agree with Keeping It Real and believe the reason Bob hasn’t taken you up on your VERY GENEROUS offer is because he knows he has nothing working to offer you.
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I personally have no skin in the game but am very curious to see how this plays out. Based on all of the comments here, it sounds like the next move is Bob’s and his silence may be due to him considering it very carefully; The comments seems to be putting a lot of pressure on him to end this war as both sides are starting to realize the reason it exists at all is because he brought the conversation it to this blog and that he is the only one with the power to end it, either by taking your deal or posting on the KS site again. It’s a very interesting time indeed…
I’ll bet February comes and goes before predictions are written. Maybe March. By then, actually by now, it doesn’t matter anymore. I came back in sort of a “morbid curiousity” to see if Bob would show up with anything at all, and if he could actually make sensible predictions.
I think it’s time for him to retire. Bob, send one final blog, and shut this all down. I think I’m probably able to make better predictions at this point, at 54, and working for cloud’s “darling” employer. I’m already trying to figure out “if I have enough” to retire myself. Technology is a young man’s game, and my sons (now 24 and 18) keep telling me that “experience doesn’t matter anymore, only current expertise in the latest trend”. It’s kind of been that way since about 2000. I’ve even contemplated opening my own taco stand, fast food, or using my retirement money to buy rent houses and just maintain them and collect rent.
I used to pride myself on working 16 hours a day and staying up on every new technology trend, and retrain myself every 5-7 years, even when the employer wouldn’t. But this last time, I just have lost my zeal for “new tech”, and am getting to the point where I “just don’t care anymore”. I think you can relate.
Mineserver doesn’t matter anymore either. Kids are already playing other games. I’ll bet your kids are on League of Legends, even OverWatch is kind of passe now. Don’t even talk about World of Warcraft. Ancient.
I said this before, but this is probably my last post here, but I’ll probably check in from time to time to see if you really do post that final “Goodbye”….
https://youtu.be/aeHJHjkwDuM
HBD, RXC!
More likely is that there never was a MineServer, even half finished one. Cringely realized he had eye surgery coming up, and saw this as a way to pay for it.
@MikeNq “Cringely realized he had eye surgery coming up, and saw this as a way to pay for it.”
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I tend to be on the “poo-poo Bob” train just as much as the next person, but I don’t think this is the case. He likely wouldn’t rope his kids and wife into a project with their faces just to scheme a buck.
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I do, however, think when the storm began to form and he realized he was ill-prepared and faced some hurdles he didn’t foresee, rather than bear the storm and seek solace with the backers, he fled like a coward. He then drove back into town years later (a completely different town than where he sold the product, mind you), and had every excuse imaginable for why he wasn’t able to deliver. He also had the audacity to scold any who questioned his absence, giving them additional blame for not being able to deliver the product.
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I do agree with you on one point however, there never was a finished MineServer. He had the core idea and got some functionality to work, but was never able to solve the unique issues he ran into (some of which he pointed out on KS); So rather than admit defeat, he went silent for months until “life” took the problem out of his hands. And this is where we currently sit, with everyone looking towards Bob to move this conversation back to KS, as he originally should have, and end this whole situation.
Looking forward to the predictions for 2020…
Chicken will probably have to wait until 2021 for 2020 predictions!
https://youtu.be/fYUbudwx2mg
Welcome back Bob 🙂
I think Bob has made the determination that is far more accurate to create 2019 predictions in late December of 2019.
[…] what may be his final year of technology predictionscolumnist Robert X. Cringely argues aerial delivery drones “are definitely coming just as fast […]
I have been watching you for a long time and today I left a comment, I want to say that I admire you so always do such wonderful things.
Thanks for these predictions again. I read your website every week. So my wife and I decided to start our website with predictions. We’ll get help with writing at https://robotdon.com/grammar-check/ in the next month. We would grateful if you visit our website. Thank you again.
I know the startup, Bob.